below: After the rain the leaves lie stuck to the path and tangled up in the grass.

below: Or stuck in the fence

below: You can’t escape the cranes…..

below: … or the hoardings.

below: Magnus and Angel are missing…. Is this a coincidence?

below: Pink flowers and a purple door.

below: Built in 1892, this building was once the Church of the Messiah Rectory. The church is the next building to the right (with the slightly yellow stones)

below: Faded flower of a different kind

below: Building behind the Rosedale Diner, as seen from Crown Lane

below: Locked door

below: Graffiti on private property.

below: The limestone Summerhill LCBO store which was originally the North Toronto Canadian Pacific train station. The clock tower is 43m high.

below: From a different angle, the station when it was first built in 1916. The tracks are still there but only freight trains pass by these days. It only lasted as a passenger station until September 1930. Back in the day if you wanted to take a train to Lindsay or Bobcaygeon, this is where you’d go although you could also get a train to Ottawa (via Peterborough & Smith’s Falls) or Montreal.

below: No stop ahead

below: “Help negro and white people mass (?) produce painted stones and hide them” plus a lot of other lines and shapes that might be letters or words.

below: I also came across this box yesterday – Sam the Chinese Food Man and other signs.

below: I have vague memories of such a Sam’s restaurant so I went online to find out more about it. What I found is this image in a “Lost Toronto” blogpost. It is Yonge Street just south of Gerrard (the Rio Theatre was 373 Yonge Street). Did you know that Toronto once had a wax museum?

below: ‘The Encompassing’ by street artist Javid (aka JAH) stands in one of the reflecting pools between the Ismaili Centre and the Aga Khan Museum. This is one of a number of pieces on display. Each is painted on reclaimed corrugated metal. They are an examination of the geometry in Islamic patterns and architecture. His work will remain on display until the 31st of October.

below: On the other side of the above painting, is this one – “Beyond”, also by Javid. The Ismaili Centre is in the background with its large pale blue dome over the prayer room.

below: The large wood beams that cover the entrance to the Ismaili Centre were being re-stained this morning.

The Toronto Ismaili Centre is one of 6 around the world. It was designed by Indian architect Charles Correa and opened in 2014. If you go on the tour of the inside of the Ismaili Centre, you will see a building that is filled with natural light, as well as natural woods and stone.

below: A calligraphy based medallion made of stone is on a white wall. The Arabic word ‘allah’ is in the center and surrounding it are the ninety nine attributes of God, written in Arabic.

below: A closer look at the wall. It took two men, a father and son, fourteen months to carve the design into this wall and a matching wall on the other side of the room. They worked six days a week . The arabesque design was penciled on using a stencil and then carved by hand.

below: A second medallion is on a wall across the room from the one above (on the other wall that was carved).

Crossing back past the reflecting pools to the Aga Khan Museum….

below: Another Javid Jah painting, this time “The Manifest”. (To the left, you can see a metal sculpture called “Big Heech” ). Like all of Jah’s paintings here, this one is based on geometry. The basic shape here is a pentagon (sacral chakra) and it is seen on the floor. This type of archway is called a muqarna and it is unique to muslim architecture. Here the shape of the indentations in the muqarna are based on the pentagon.

The “Big Heech” is the work of Parviz Tanavoli, made from stainless steel in 2014. It is derived from the Persian word for “nothingness” and it is an important word in Perian Sufism.

“Emperors and Jewels: Treasures of the Indian Court from the Al-Sabah Collection in Kuwait”, is a temporary exhibit at the Aga Khan Museum featuring artworks and historical objects from the treasuries of Mughal emperors. The Mughal Empire ruled most of present day Pakistan and India in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Mughals were Muslim but the majority of the population were Hindu.

below: Part of a larger picture depicting a hunting scene, reproduced and enlarged especially for the exhibit.

below: Three glass bottles

below: Two fish joined to make a circle, a standard. From India, late 18th century. Made from silver. There are many myths and symbols that feature fish. In Hindu tradition, the fish was associated with Brahma and Manu, a progenitor of mankind. In addition, one myth is that a fish was believed to hold up the globe.

below: A portrait of Nawab Bairam Khan, painted around 1710-40, watercolour and gold on paper. He is pictured in profile, sitting alone in his peaceful garden.

below: Knife with jade handle carved in the shape of a horse head and neck.

This is another “come along with me as I walk” blog. Let me share some of the sights from Thursday’s walk which started at Ossington subway station and sort of followed Davenport south to Queen Street with a few diversions down alleys and side streets.

below: More painting, this time Princess Leia and a strange red man with a latch in his ear.

below: If he’s aiming for the garbage bin, he’s missed.

below: ‘Always fresh bread!’ according to the mural on Nova Era bakery… but maybe you see the edge of the blue and white city of Toronto development notice sign peeking into the picture….

below: … because a 12 storey condo may be moving in. Retail is planned for the lower level but it may the same old same old glass and steel development with excessively high ceilings on the ground floor and zero street appeal. Please prove me wrong!

below: Across the street, is this empty storefront. Two intriguing blackboards remain – the one on the left says Thank You! and leaves you lines to fill in with things you are thankful for. On the right, a “Before I Die” board. What are you thankful for? What would you like to do before you die? The business once here didn’t die, they just moved around the corner to Bloor Street.

below: A bit of local ‘colour’ complete with ‘colourful’ language.

below: This building is on the northeast corner of Bloor and Dovercourt.

below: I haven’t been able to find out anything about Valentinos but I quite like the debonair rider with a rose between his teeth.

below: Vintage photo of the Bloor and Dovercourt intersection. No cars!

below: The red and white building in the postcard above is on the southeast corner of the intersection. It is now home to a Pizza Pizza. Most of it’s large windows have been covered over with large pictures. The streetcar tracks on Bloor are long gone and Davies butcher shop is now a Starbucks.

below: I walked past St. Michael Archangel Serbian Eastern Orthodox Church (on Delaware Ave) and a Portuguese Presbyterian Church (on Dovercourt). Then I came across the Centennial Methodist Church. It was built in 1906 and converted into residences in 2010.

CENTENNIAL METHODIST CHURCH, 1906, This Neo-Gothic inspired church replaced an earlier Centennial Methodist Church built on this site in 1891. Notable design elements include decorative stone trim, three central Tudor-arch windows, and flanking square towers topped with pyramidal steeples. It was renamed Centennial United Church in , after the creation of the United Church of Canada. In 1986, the Nisei congregation of the Toronto Japanese Church joined Centennial United to form Centennial Japanese Church. A residential redevelopment was completed in 2010.

below: A little farther south on Dovercourt I passed this for sale sign. I stopped and took a photo of it because of the words in pink: “Laneway suite potential”. Of course I had to check the lane to see if anyone had built suites back there. Suites, according to the city of Toronto, are rooms built over garages and not stand alone residences.

below: It is a neat and tidy lane but so far with no suites

below: But I did see this mural there.

below: I also noticed that the backyards on both sides of the alley were very deep, wonderfully deep actually, especially for a city house. You could probably sever it in two quite easily.

below: In fact, something like that has happened a bit farther south where someone took one house, renovated it, and added three more residences with additional access from the alley behind. I notice that there are 4 water meters here as well as a gate that possibly provides access to the houses behind.

In case you’re curious, the four houses are all for sale. The house in front is a semi and the asking price is $2,400,000. For that you get 2992 square feet and 4 bedrooms. The others are slightly smaller and slightly less expensive.

below: A rare large vacant lot

below: Norbregas Variety and Grocery.

below: And nearby, a cafe with both Coca-Cola and Pepsi signs

below: The streets around Dovercourt are all very nice with lots of large solid old houses and tall trees – in this case, a chestnut tree.

below: I even spotted some wildlife!

below: Northeast corner of College & Dovercourt

below: Letters embedded in the sidewalk where one of the branches of the Garrison Creek passes underground, just south of College Street. The creek was buried more than a century ago. In the early days, the creek was treated more like an open sewer than a river. As the city developed, the stream was diverted into underground sewers (1880’s) and streets were built above it. By 1920, almost a century ago, the stream was entirely diverted into the sewer system.

below: The age of this car seemed to fit well with the buildings around it.

below: Some of Dr. Spock still remains. He hasn’t been beamed up yet.

below: Part of a mural by elicser in a lane behind Dundas West

below: Looking east along Dundas, from Dovercourt

below: A larger than life Pink Panther painted by Matt Gondek. This is on the northeast corner of Dundas and Dovercourt, close to Skey Lane where his other murals are (see recent blog post on Skey Lane)

below: She can still be found near Queen and Dovercourt (painted by Jarus)

Just before Queen Street West there is an art galley called the David Kaye Gallery.

below: It may be difficult to see, but this cup is displayed in a glass case mounted on the wall. The back part of the cube is a mirror. For $12,500 it can be yours (but my arm is not included!).

below: Both this piece, and the cup above, are part of “Camp Fires: The Queer Baroque of Léopold L. Foulem” and are on display until the 23rd of September.

I am going to end this blog post with a few pictures of some of the graffiti that I saw:

There is no theme to this blog post. It’s just a description of some of the things that I saw as I walked down Bathurst Street the other day after taking the 512 streetcar to St. Clair West station. In a lot of ways its like other busy Toronto streets, some houses, a few corner stores, and an alley or two along the way. A little bit of architecture and a little bit of history round out the story.

At St. Clair West and Bathurst, the northeast corner remains vacant. About four or five years ago there was a gas station and car wash on this corner. St. Clair West subway station is just to the east, just beyond the trees on the right hand side.

below: I went looking for an old photo of this corner and this is what I found. It’s from 1924. If the streetcar’s destination is Caledonia, then it is going westward. In 1924, St. Clair was the northern edge of the city and very little development had occurred here. It is interesting to note that the streetcar tracks came first, then the development. In addition, I’d love to be able to read the sign about dogs but the resolution of the photo is not good enough. An ad? A sign saying no dogs allowed? Or something else?

below: Of course, no vacant lot remains that way for long. At the moment, three 30 storey towers joined with a 6 or 7 storey podium has been proposed for the site but it is still in the re-zoning and planning stages. The light brown building to the left is St. Michael’s College School (boys school).

below: New development on the southeast corner of this intersection is almost complete. People have moved into the units above while the finishing touches are put on the lower retail floors. Developments like this are all over the city. Developments that look great (maybe?) on paper but are lackluster and banal at street level.

below: As I walked south on Bathurst, this mural caught my eye.

Words written beside the mural:“Long before concrete and steelPunctuated the landscape The land was pure and natural This mural acknowledges and honors 13 trees and 21 medicinal plants that have thrived here since time immemorial.”

The mural was funded by Toronto’s Start program (street art) and Na’Ma’Res Sagatay, a residence for indigenous men that is nearby.

I will admit that the main reason that I was walking in this area is because I wanted to check out the new public artwork that I’ve read about at Bathurst and Vaughan. It is “Three Points Where Two Lines Meet” by Christian Giroux and Daniel Young and apparently there is some controversy about it.

below: For those who don’t know that intersection, it is V-shaped. This photo shows the approach to the intersection from the north, on Vaughan. I took this photo because my first reaction to the scene was “Ugly. Ugly is what Toronto does”. From this angle the sculpture gets lost in the visual noise.

Cities have rules and regulations for public art. It needs to be weatherproof and graffiti-proof. It can’t block the view of drivers and pedestrians. No sharp edges or structures that people might hurt themselves on – note the two black poles are to prevent people from hitting their heads.

From Giroux & Young’s website: “Taking its form from the orphaned triangular site on which it sits, this artwork produces a new urban room by combining a multicoloured truss structure, the triangular plot of wild grasses it encloses, and an encircling sidewalk thats acts as a podium and plinth. Located between the converging energies of uptown and downtown, the structure densifies an intersection already clotted with utilities and challenges established forms of urbanism and spatial representation in Toronto.” Think of that what you will. While you’re thinking, you can check the website for more photos and information.

below: An interesting (unique?) roofline on what turns out to be The Occult Shop. I made one mistake – I neglected to cross the street to go inside and find out just what one can buy here.

below: These people can still be seen in the space above the doorway at 1358 Bathurst.

Continuing south on Bathurst, as you go downhill towards Davenport Road, there is a retaining wall beside the sidewalk on the west side. This wall was painted back in October 2013. The city paid $23,000 to two Brooklyn NY street artists (Patrick McNeil and Patrick Miller, together known as Faile) who designed the mural and in turn paid other artists to paint it.

The mural is quite long and I only have a few pictures of bits and pieces of it.

below: Apparently Davenport Road is considered to be one of Toronto’s oldest roads. It follows the base of a ridge and provided a route between the Humber River in the west and the Don River in the east.

below: There is a park on the northwest corner of Bathurst and Davenport, The Tollkeeper’s Park. The old house, the Tollkeeper’s Cottage, is now a museum run by The Community History Project. It is open on Saturday afternoons (and some Sundays during the summer)

below: And across the road is Tollkeeper’s Lane. There are chairs everywhere in this city not usually as comfy looking as these.

below: An old Comet parked in the alley

below: Tomatoes and other vegetables growing in a front yard.

below: A hand, part of an Elicser mural. This mural, which is on both sides of the railway underpass just north of Dupont, is still there. Photos can be seen in a blog post from Nov 2014 (Yikes! Have I been blogging that long?!).

There are a few remnants of a more industrial past in the area near the railway tracks.

below: Another door – I doubt that it’s open now, or that it ever will be again.

below: These windows, and the house too, probably won’t be here much longer either.

below: A very standard row of semi-divided houses; a common sight. Hundreds (thousands?) of these were built around the city.

below: And a not so usual semi.

below: A touch of art deco.

below: Slight larger houses, with turrets even! (or is there another name for this architectural element?)

below: This is part of Coopers Hawk Lane which is just south of Dupont.

Stained glass windows and churches go hand in hand. The church of St. Simon and St. Peter on Bloor Street East is no exception. The church was built as St. Simon the Apostle, on the northern fringe of the city in 1887-1888. The congregation grew rapidly and the church was expanded in 1892. Its earliest stained glass window dates from 1899 and the most modern window was installed in 1997 – 100 years of history. Some of the windows in this church, and the stories they tell, are shown below.

below: Saint Simon and Saint Matthew, 1927, Robert McCausland Ltd., Dedicated to the memory of Augustus Perrine Burritt (1868-1925). Traditionally, saints are portrayed with their ‘attributes’. Here, Simon holds a saw and Matthew holds a purse, or bag of money. Matthew was a tax collector before he became an apostle. No one really knows much about Simon and there are many conflicting stories about how, when, and where he died. One story is that he died by being sawn in two in Persia. Whatever the history, now if you see a painting or a statue of saint and he’s holding a long saw, then you’ll know that it’s Simon.

Augustus P. Burritt’s wife, Jean Bell Smith, outlived him by many years. She lived until 1969. They are buried together in Mt. Pleasant cemetery. She is Jean B. Smith Durland on the tombstone so she must have married a second time. I may be flying away on a tangent, but there is CWSGA (Canadian Women’s Senior Golf Association) trophy called the Jean Burritt Durland trophy.

McCausland of Toronto is the oldest surviving stained glass studio in North America. In fact, five generations of McCauslands have overseen the work of the firm from 1856 to the present.

“Joseph McCausland, glass stainer, house, sign, and ornamental painter, established his business in 1852, and added the stained-glass works in 1857, being the first of its kind in the city. He is now employing over fifty hands. Mr. McCausland was born in County Armagh, Ireland, in 1829 and came to Toronto in 1836.” fromHistory of Toronto and County of York, Ontario vol 1, 1885. (source) The stained-glass works mentioned here was the Canada Stained Glass Works in Toronto. Although the bulk of McCausland’s work was for churches in the Toronto area, they made windows for churches elsewhere, for a lot of government buildings (University College, City Hall, B.C. parliament in Victoria), and for commercial buildings such as the Bank of Montreal at Yonge & Front. In 1881, Joseph’s son Robert took over the business and it has remained in the family ever since.

below: The Dorcas window – Dorcas distributes bread to the poor, by Robert McCausland Ltd. in 1921, dedicated to the memory of Martha Bolton Wilkes (d. 1919). Dorcas (or Tabitha in Hebrew or Aramaic) was a seamstress who clothed the poor as well as fed them. After she died, a miraculous prayer by Peter the Apostle brought her back from the dead. She has become a symbol of charity.

Martha Wilkes was the wife of Robert Wilkes (1832-1880), a politician and businessman. Robert drowned at Sturgeon Point with two of his children in August 1880, Florence Alexandria (age 15) and Bertie Cooke Wilkes (age 12). The family is buried together in Mt Pleasant cemetery.

An account of the death of Robert was given in the Canadian Methodist Magazine vol 15, January to June, 1882. “The sad disaster lacked no element of the tragical and pathetic. In the month of August, 1880, Mr. Wilkes and his family were spending a few summer holidays at Sturgeon Point, a beautiful health-resort on Sturgeon Lake. On the 16th of the month, his only son and second daughter, aged, respectively thirteen and fifteen, were bathing in the lake, while their father rowed a small boat near at hand. The lad, attempting to reach his father’s boat, sank beneath the water. Mr. Wilkes plunged in to rescue him, and found himself beyond his depth. His daughter Florence, rushing to their assistance, got also beyond her depth, and thus all three perished in full view of the shore. Mrs. Wilkes who was an eye-witness of the dreadful tragedy, rushed into the water and was with difficulty prevented from losing her life in a futile attempt to save those so dear to her. Prompt efforts were made to rescue the bodies, but, alas! the spark of life had fled. Although that of Florence was still warm, yet every attempt at its resuscitation was in vain.”

below: There are a few other McCausland windows in St. Simons church. This is a detail from one of them, the Te Deum window, named for the prayer that contains the words “To thee all angels cry aloud”.

below: Saint Cecilia, by Sarah Hall, 1997. Saint Cecilia is the patroness of musicians and she is in the center, flanked by two trumpet bearing angels. It’s difficult to see in this photo, but under the music notes, at the very bottom of the window, are the words “From har-mo-ny from heav-nly har-mo-ny This u-ni-ver-sal frame be-gan”. Each syllable matches a note. They are also the first two lines in a poem written by John Dryden in 1687 called “A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day”.

below: These windows by Gerald E. Tooke (b. 1930), four panels, each an illustration of a miracle performed by Jesus. On the very left is the marriage at Cana where water was turned into wine. Next is the feeding of the multitudes with bread and fish. Second to the right is the healing of the blind man and last is the Resurrection. These date from 1965 and are dedicated to the memory of Anna Alfreda Waller (d. 1964) and her husband (d. 1949). [There’s a turn – usually it’s the wife whose name gets lost!].

below: Memorial to the Women of St. Simons 1883-1983, by Stephen Taylor. Maybe you see her as a Mother Earth figure as the root of all that grows or maybe you see her as a woman in bondage. She almost looks like she’s bound to a cross. The carnations above her are symbolic – according to a Christian legend, carnations grew from Mary’s tears as she watched Jesus carry the cross and, hence, they became associated with motherly love.

For a more complete story about stained glass and the windows of St. Simons, there is a pdf here

The other day I discovered that there is a small gallery on the 3rd floor of Ryerson’s School of Image Arts. If you want to find it too, it’s in a building that it’s in is attached at the ground floor level to the Ryerson Image Centre on Gould Street. At the moment, there is a small exhibit of photos by Avard Woolaver.

below: The photos are ones that Woolaver took in Toronto in the late 70s and early 80s.

below: This photo is one of Woolaver’s – it is looking towards the northwest corner of Spadina and Queen Street West. For those of us who lived in Toronto at the time, it’s a bit of nostalgia. Somethings are very familiar – the older TTC buses, the car styles, and a lot of the architecture, for example. This photo in particular lends itself nicely to the game of ‘Spot the Differences’….. compare this with

below: …..this. Here is the same intersection, at a similar angle, last week. The large brick building is still there but without a billboard. The poles are no longer wood but they are covered in posters and remnants of posters – so no change there. The street signs have been updated and there is now a streetcar lane in the middle. All in all, I was surprised how little had actually changed in 30ish years.

below: I found this photo online (originally from the Toronto City Archives, 1950?) but before we can play another round of ‘Spot the Differences’, we have to identify these buildings? Any ideas?

below: Here is the same location in the 1980’s (not a photo from the exhibit). Not too many changes. The building that housed George Richards Men’s shop, 361 Yonge Street, was replaced by a dull and boring two storey brick building but the other changes were just to the facades and the owners/tenants. The tavern is still a tavern and the drug store is still a drug store. The large brown building on the top right that you can only see part of is Ryerson College. Unfortunately the Wrigleys ghost sign on the taller building on the left has been covered.

below: Fast forward another 30 years. The Zanzibar is all bright lights and dazzle while the building that housed the drug store is now for sale. Ryerson is now a University and has expanded out to Yonge Street – that’s the large blue building in case you are not familiar with the area.

below: If you pull back a bit, and look just a bit farther north on that stretch of Yonge Street, you’ll see that there are many empty buildings

below: … including what was until recently the XTC clothing company. It looks like it has gone through a number of ‘renovations’, not all of which were good. Some traces of its original brick facade can be seen at the top but at street level it is (was?) a mess.

There is a plan to build a 98 storey mixed-use building on this site including just over 900 residential units ranging in size from 520 to 2000 square feet. It will be the tallest residential building in Canada. In the promotional material for YSL Residences, as they will be called, is this: “The epitome of luxury living, designed to elevate the fortunate few who will call it home.”

below: Back to Ryerson, also on the 3rd floor of the School of Image Arts, there was a small series of photographs like this one hanging on the wall in the hallway. There was no sign as to the name of the artist that I could find either on the wall or online. I quite like the technique and the resulting image. Two ideas melded into one. Two time frames in one frame. Two artistic styles combined to create another.

If you are interested in Woolaver’s work, you can find more on his blog.

below: A streetcar passes by, down the middle of the road with young trees growing alongside the tracks. In the background is an old white brick building with rounded brown arches over the upper windows that now houses the Furama Cake & Dessert Garden – one of the many restaurants, coffee shops and bakeries along this stretch of Spadina.

Construction of Spadina Avenue began in 1815. It was always a wide street, running between Bloor and Queen.

Spadina, and neighbouring Kensington market, was the center of Jewish life in Toronto in the early 1900’s with synagogues, delis, tailors, a Yiddish theatre, and more. About 80% of Toronto’s Jews lived in the area. It was also home to the garment district (also known as the fashion district) with its numerous furriers, clothing factories and warehouses – what we’d probably call sweat shops today.

below: The northeast corner of Dundas and Spadina, June 1930 showing the sign over the door of ‘The Standard’ a Yiddish theatre that opened in 1921. It was converted into a (mainstream) cinema in 1934 and renamed ‘The Strand’. Another renaming occurred in 1941 when it became ‘The Victory’. Twenty years later it became the Victory Burlesque. The doors closed permanently in 1975. Photo found on Bygone Theatre website.

below: This plaque is on the west side of Spadina, just north of King Street. It describes the contributions of Benjamin Brown (1890-1974), architect, to the area.

Benjamin Brown, one of Toronto’s first Jewish architects, designed more than 200 buildings throughout his career. Born in Lithuania, he came to Canada as a child. Brown graduated from the University of Toronto’s architecture program in 1913. He was partners with architect Robert McConnell until 1921, when he set up an independent practice.

Commissioned largely by members of Toronto’s Jewish community, Brown’s projects ranged from parking garages and gas stations to apartment houses and factory lofts. His Tower Building (1927) and Balfour Building (1930) on Spadina Avenue at Adelaide Street formed a gateway to Toronto’s garment district. Other well known buildings by Brown include the Hermant Building (1929 on Dundas Square, the Primrose Club (1920) and the Beth Jacob Synagogue (1922), the first Toronto synagogue designed by a Jewish architect. Brown retired in 1955.

Both the Tower Building and the Balfour Building still stand. The later, pictured on the plaque is on the NE corner of Spadina & Adelaide. It was named for Arthur J. Balfour, British statesman, the author of the 1917 Balfour Declaration that pledged British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

below: This is ‘Uniform Measure/Stack’ by Stephen Cruise and it includes that giant thimble on a stack of buttons, a few button shaped tree planters, and a tape measure carved into the sidewalk as it goes around the corner (you can see a bit of it at the bottom right of the photo). This tribute to the garment district, or rag trade if you want to call it that, dates back to 1997. A few years ago the tape measure was painted yellow – but not by the artist. It has since been cleaned up. Recent sidewalk work has scarred the tape measure but most of it remains intact.

below: Another piece of garment district history – an old Singer sewing machine as an ornament above a narrow alley between two buildings.

In the 1960s and 70s, the Jewish population moved out and the Chinese moved in. In keeping with the changes that were occurring on Spadina, The Victory was sold in 1975 and subdivided into shops on the main floor and a Chinese language cinema upstairs, first named the Golden Harvest and then the Mandarin. This cinema closed in 1994.

In the late 60s and early 70s, the city demolished a large section of land to make way for the new city hall. At that time, Chinatown was centered around Dundas and Elizabeth streets. Many of the Chinese who were displaced by the construction moved west along Dundas to Spadina. Although many of the Chinese businesses and residents have moved north to Markham & vicinity, this stretch of Spadina is still considered to be Chinatown.

below: A panda eating bamboo, painted by Murals by Marg with support from Chinatown BIA & StreetARToronto.

below: Another Chinese themed mural, with tags unfortunately.

below: This caught my attention – Does it look like fresh ginger? And no, there was nothing in front of the sign either. Smile.

below: Even on cold days you can buy fruits and vegetables on the sidewalk outside the Chinese grocery stores.

below: Feeding the pigeons.

below: This is an old display of CD’s mounted on a wall inside a window of an empty store. The window is dirty but if you step into the recess of the entrance way, you can see the possibility of reflection, light and colour playing together. This was actually the first picture that I took when I walked up Spadina the other day. After I saw this window I started paying closer attention to other empty stores.

There are quite a few empty stores and sections of Spadina are quite grubby looking. As I mentioned above, many of the Chinese businesses have move on and once again the area is the middle of a change.

below: Someone cared enough to paint this delicate birdcage and ivy scene on the wall. Doesn’t it make you wonder who did it? and why? and what happened to them?

below: A painted over intercom – a remnant of the past. But the plywood that the intercom was mounted on is partially torn away to reveal an even older, more hidden, past. Does anyone live or work at 437 anymore? What lies behind the door?

below: This little place had a short life as a store – but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was. I think that once upon a time it was an 8 Eleven (play on 7 Eleven stores) but that was long ago and I know that it closed before I first saw this space. How easy it is to forget.

below: As I passed by this window, I thought to myself “How cute, pikachu.” Then I stopped and went back. No, not pikachu. Part of the seedier side of Spadina Avenue.

below: Layers. On the left, hoardings around an old building being demolished and on the right, a staid brick building. Behind them is a newer development with its bright east wall.